Letters Lived Contributor: Rae Spoon

You may already be familiar with Canadian writer and indie musician Rae Spoon’s body of work. Long recognized as a genre-defying singer-songwriter whose 2008 album Superioryouareinferior was longlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, just last year Spoon published their first book, First Spring Grass Fire. Nominated for a Lambda award (the biggest award for LGBTQ books!), First Spring Grass Fire is a collection of short stories about growing up queer in Alberta. In her review for the National Post, Jennifer LoveGrove describes the book as “a story of what we do to find a place, physical or intangible, that we can call home”–themes that Spoon also writes about in their candid and powerful contribution to Letters Lived.

In addition to Spoon’s relatively new career as a writer–about which they joke in Letters Lived, “like you need two careers that your working-class family doesn’t consider ‘work’”–a musical-documentary was just released about them in September. My Prairie Home, which is also the name of Spoon’s most recent album, is a National Film Board production for which Spoon also provides the soundtrack. Developed collaboratively with Director Chelsea McMullan, My Prairie Home is based on Spoon’s experience as a trans musician from the Prairies (an interesting interview about McMullan and Spoon’s process can be found here).

Whatever the medium, Spoon’s work is always both honest and innovative, and their contribution to the Letters Lived collection is no exception.